Watch: Cops Have Standoff With Criminal… Then Sniper Sees 1 in a Million Shot

If you’re a police sniper and you make an amazing shot on video, it’s pretty easy to go viral nowadays. After all, between YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and all the rest, if you do something awesome, it’ll make its way around the world of social media within minutes.

How amazing is the shot Mike Plumb made during a standoff with a despondent criminal who was threatening to kill himself? Well, it went viral all the way back in 1993. In other words, he went viral before viral was even a word, back when you were probably connecting to CompuServe with your Commodore Amiga — if you had a computer at all.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, the one-in-a-million shot came during an Aug. 16, 1993, standoff between Columbus, Ohio, police and a 37-year-old man named Doug Conley.

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Conley, depressed over the loss of his girlfriend, had set himself up in the middle of a residential intersection with a plastic chair and a .38 revolver, determined to either go out himself or take some cops with him. For two long, hot hours, the standoff played itself out, neither side giving an inch. Conley, it appeared, was running the show.

That’s when police called in Columbus SWAT sniper Mike Plumb. A Marine who served in Vietnam, Plumb was referred to as a “bad dude” in the best sort of way. Even given Plumb’s skills, no Columbus SWAT sniper had ever fired a shot in the line of duty.

That was about to change.

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With police out of options, Plumb was given the order to neutralize Conley. However, he managed to do it in a way that could scarcely be believed.

“Conley took a swig of a soda negotiators had given him, and he sat up straight in his chair,” the Dispatch reported. “He put his left hand on his knee. With his right hand, he lowered the revolver between his legs — into Plumb’s crosshairs.”

He shot the gun from the criminal’s hand. And you thought that sort of thing only happened in movies.

In 2015, 22 years after that shot, Plumb retired. After leaving the police force in 2000, he’d been serving as Columbus’ city facilities security manager since 2007.

“They don’t make them like Mike anymore,” then-Mayor Michael B. Coleman said. “I respect the guy for his entire career. He’s one of the best of the best, and I really do not want him to retire. It will be a loss.”

Meanwhile, Plumb has become a legend. His Austrian-made Steyr SSG PII rifle hangs on the wall at Columbus SWAT headquarters. When the movie “American Sniper” came out, those in the know began comparing him to Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Decades later, it remains a viral video, although Plumb concedes he’s “not up on that sort of stuff.”

Even Conley, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of inducing panic and was put on probation for two years, was among those offering plaudits to Plumb.

“That was a great shot,” Conley said as he was put into handcuffs, some 24 years ago.

That it was.

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